Walking and Gardening

I completed this exhausting weekend by exhausting myself to the extreme on this Palm Sunday. My body felt like it'd been through pilates after my heavy gyrating of last night...and so TWO 55-minute walks & 2 train rides before and after 90 minutes of rigorous mowing and hedge-clipping has left me rather depleted. Throw in the tiring effect of the sun for good measure. Having said that, I enjoyed it...great exercise, nice to be out and about, seeing the fruits of my landscaping labor. Wound up with a home-cooked dinner, too. MMMM. It was my inaugural gardening gig of the season. I do so enjoy being one with Mother Earth. Pouring gasoline into the mower's always fun, too...not sure why, but I enjoy it. Simple things. Oh, yes, and I also got rid of 2 food items I didn't want by dropping them off in a ShopRite bag in front of a church door. Surely the clergy still collects random drop-offs for the needy in 2006? That was actually Plan B after I couldn't find the Hoboken homeless shelter on my brisk jaunt home. I actually made sure the food was clearly visible, not wanting a priest or nun to fear a bomb or abandoned baby...the perverse way I think. And then there was the phone message at my parents'. They were in Atlantic City. I saw the blinking light and played the message. And here's where blogs get weird -- for me, at least -- because I have no interest in relaying the content of the message. Yet it altered my day. I don't mean to be coy or melodramatic, but it wasn't good news, and made me feel like a jackass for complaining about various things since Friday. Again...perspective. Damn if the off-the-top-of-my-head title of this blog isn't perfect! Remain optimistic...sounds so Mary Poppins. But the alternative's no way to live. Where would it get you?